


The Birth of Seven Fathers:

by TheLightdancer



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Creation Myth, Eldritch Ainur, On the origin of species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:40:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27220621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLightdancer/pseuds/TheLightdancer
Summary: Inspired by his father's work, Mahal the Maker conceives of a wondrous concept and sets to work. With his chief Maiar, he begins a secret work that he hopes to make his father pleased. So are born the Seven Fathers of the Khazad.
Relationships: Aulë | Mahal/Yavanna Kementári
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	The Birth of Seven Fathers:

**_The Deeps of Time Before Time:_ **

It was the Elder Days, when Belkoroz had descended in wrath in a form of iron with eyes that glowed like stars and a sneer of cold command on his face. His hand had pressed to the ground and then fires had burned, and land was laid waste. That first vision before Almaren and the time of the lamps had died before it was born. Mahal could never forgive his errant eldest brother for this. He was mightiest of them all, greatest in the eyes of their father. He had been blessed with the visions and the power of all of them, and this was what he'd turned it to. Envy and hate, cold and cruel spite.

All for want of desiring a kingdom of his own and the power to create. Only their Father could do such things, and he had seen them. Wonders. Mountains with rich veins of jewels and metals for the Children. Forges like his own, in emulation of his works where hammers rang and the metal that was heated cooled and took shape. He did not create, not as his father built, for it was not in him to create something out of nothing. And yet he could take dirt and raw ore and work it in his forges, creating wonders. He had made weapons and armor in secret for a day when Belkoroz returned. Only he knew of it, of the armor worked lavishly with decorations, things that offered no aesthetic purpose beyond noting that these were weapons for Kings, for the Powers appointed to govern the world in the name of the Allfather in Whose will they had forged things.

His hammer moved, and he saw the metal take shape, it reflected in his eyes. He was clad in the form and in the shape of his own thought, a molten giant of iron, a volcanic force that like his works wrought things in the image and in the likeness of his forge. His eyes glowed as molten brass, his beard was ruby, his chest as obsidian, and his bulk immense. The very nature of his presence filled his forge. Long hours did he labor, and his eyes turned to the two Maiar who among them were brought to this. A test, something to help him guide and seek to see what his Maiar would work with him to do. 

Here, it was a thing of beauty, circular in shape, the metal worked by hammer and by blade, imagery of flowers and of trees, of bird and beast, formed. Imagery and the writing in Valarin, using the Enochian script taught them by their father. A name inscribed, that of his beloved bride, the Kementari. He had smiled when it was done, seeing the quiet hunger and ambition of Curumo, whose form was silver and chalcendony, four limbs at work in the forge and standing on two. The lower limbs were bulkier than the greater but all worked in unity, and he looked and he beheld and it was good. On the other side was a towering being in gold with bright eyes and a rapt awe, looking at his master's works. Mairon, the greatest of all his spirits, in whom lived an innovation that he could have never imagined, and would never have imagined. 

The test had been to seek to make a new thing, an alloy. Metal joined to metal. A thing that his Maiar would never have imagined on their own, and to seek to create a new blend of shapes. He had mulled ideas and watched in pride as his Maiar had shown this skill and driving ambition, each honing the other.

When it was done he moved it from the forges with his bare hands, for he was master of forges and of shaping metal, and of taking metal to stone. He breathed and the metal cooled, a circular design with a shape akin to Varda's stars at one remove but in truth the perfect circle of his love for his beloved, a serpent eating its tail. A symbol that would have no end as the love that had inspired it did. 

He placed it there, and then turned to his new concept, to the carefully placed sets of materiel, and the humming nature of the great Song their Father had taught them all.

In a voice like grinding boulders Mahal the Maker spoke:

**_My sons, today, I shall show you wonders._ **

The Admirable son and the Son of Skill stood together, Gold and Silver and Chalcedony, and both looked as their father moved in that image of his thought, a giant that towered over them and as vast as his mountains. Yet in him there was a warmth and a love that left them feeling fulfilled, Mairon certain that he could never find a master greater nor kinder, and that in no world nor future would this ever be. And a quiet hunger in the will of Curumo, one that grew the greater as their father's hand moved to the first of the seven piles. 

**_We know the nature of the Enemy, of the Mighty Arising who kindled fires and sought to make things a ruin. I have seen my father's vision, my son. The Children. The Firstborn, sons and daughters of story and song, to whom shall be ascribed mighty deeds. And the Secondborn, given a gift that we can only imagine and yea, we shall envy and come to envy. A thing that our father has said that I cannot grasp, none of us can._ **

It was the Admirable who spoke in a soft voice, so soft, not the one for which he would become infamous in later years when treacherous promises of false knowledge drew him down a terrible path.

_What thing, O Lord?_

**_Death. To depart from Arda, to parts unknown, souls taking a path we know not. Our father has shown that there are things we cannot know, but he has shown such great strife. The Mighty Arising shall return, as he did that first time, and then when he descended in that towering shape of malice._ **

Had he seen the look of awe in the face of the Admirable, much might have been prevented, for the Admirable had talked in secret to a voice lower and mightier and more keen to the ear than his master's. It promised him great things, the assertion of will not merely within a pattern but _over_ it. Not merely to be a servant but a King. Had he seen this and seen more of what was in Mairon's heart, much might have been prevented but fire burned in Mahal hot as his forges, and he spoke onward. 

_**So, my sons, I shall show you wonders. We shall make a thing in His honor and in His name, beings that could withstand the greatest forces of the Enemy. No sickness nor disease shall blight them, no force save great weapons shall lay them low. Seven times shall they return in flesh through the ages, and at the last what was born of stone shall return to it. My Khazad. And I wish that you take a part in this, the greatest of all my labors.** _

The honeyed lies that the Admirable heard fell in the wake of his master's words, at the kindness in them, the willingness to share secrets, to grant Maiar a glimpse into the burdens that moved a Vala. Fell things at work in his heart vanished as with Curumo they moved, Gold and Silver and Chalcedony working, along with their master. Hours did they labor, at seven things of stone and of metal's molten heat. Each was shaped, slowly and lovingly. Of them the first known to men and Elves as Durin the Deathless, who lived nine hundred and sixty nine years and then he died, and of whom his descendants likewise lived longest and greatest of all the Seven Houses was shaped by all three of their hands.

Mighty was he, first of all the Khazad, and beside him was shaped his wife, a woman of form as great as his own, shaped as his mirror and his complement. Yet of all that is or will ever be in Arda, the women of the Khazad are those most distinct. For they are not meant and shaped in the eye of dependence, or servitude. They are equals in strength, often superior in knowledge, and greater in heart, as even the mightiest of Dwarf-Kings on great gilded thrones would admit unashamedly. The men built for war abroad, the women built to sustain and to defend the kingdoms, each partner to the other.

Durin and Frejya, firstborn of the Khazad. Built with bodies of precious jewels and the most precious stone, the bodies shaped slowly and with great detail, each hair upon their head worked, each shape and tangle and mat in a beard or in the long hair of Freyja, the very knuckles on each hands and the nails of hands and feet alike. It was the master craft of the master craftman, and his very soul poured into it, and where the Father of the Longbeards was first, there were six others, each shaped no less.

Father and Mother Ironfist, shaped as the name says with hands of iron. To them are given the gifts of both great brawls and great jewels, for none among the Seven Clans can match them. Their hands are somewhat larger, and it is said that the Ironfists adorn their hands in gauntlets or perhaps that their hands are born of metal that is born flat and grows within it into broader shape. For the knowledge of each Dwarf clan is guarded more carefully than the most precious gold. Stouter than the fathers of the Longbeards, with great focus from the Man of Skill, of them all they are the most Skillful in all things, though in no case are they greater masters in any one than any other.

The Admirable made Father and Mother Stiffbeard, their beards a great singular block of stone with small and careful traces and relief. Of all the clans they love to adorn their beards with armor, and theirs the sweetest music and the greatest harpists. To know lordship one goes to the House of Durin, to know songs and the secret of all Dwarven music, with its enchanted power, one must go to the heirs of Father Stiffbeard. To hear the sweetest hymns of Dwarf-women, one must go to the feet of Mother Stiffbeard and her heirs, whose hair likewise is adorned in armor and kept veiled from the sight of all save the clan, who alone may know what is there. In them lives the music of the spheres, ever echoing and from them comes the fairest of the things of Dwarven make.

Next were Father and Mother Broadbeam, shaped by Mahal with aid from the Admirable, the very stoutest and widest of all the clans, in whom lives an understanding in its keenest sense of the world that is and all that is within it, an understanding of the great and the lesser, of angles, of where to move. They are the seers and the Wise, in them lives and dwells lore and secrets known only to the Dwarves. Things known not to Men nor Elf nor Ent nor Hobbit, things of great wonder of the deep and hidden elements of the Earth as it is and all that is within it, of the molten power that is its blood. The names of Nameless Things and from whence they came, and of the shadowy recesses in the deep corners of the world. Of Father Broadbeam it is said he drank the mead of poetry, of Mother Broadbeam that she gives the wine of ballads, and that to know lore, one goes to Stiffbeards. To know poetry and the game of riddles, one must go to Broadbeams, to whom no and yes are questions which may pass time and day alike.

Of the Firebeards it is said that it was the Man of Skill who shaped that which has made them known. To Men and Elves it is but a poetic reference to a Dwarven clan whose hair is red as fire. To those who know the deep secrets it is no metaphor but in truth hair of fire, for theirs are secret arts connected to the knowledge of flame. It is said that of all clans in the North in the Elder Days that the Firebeards were among the most dreadful foes of Morgoth Bauglir, but it is also said that it is from them that came the Petty-Dwarves, consumed by the fires unleashed, by the desires for secret things and yea, being the most warlike of a warlike race. Fire burned in the Petty-Dwarves who became stunted even by the standard of the Khazad and were expelled from Belegost, there to meet the unkindness of the Noldor, who eradicated them as animals, confident that they and they alone are truthful in the eyes of their Father even when the war they brought to the Great Lands was a rebellion against him.

Of the Stonefoots it is said that they were made as mirror of the Ironfists, for where Fists of Iron work great wonders in the forge, feet of Stone are anchored in truth. The Stonefoots are closest of kin to the Longbeards and share with them length of beard but a hand shorter. Where Longbeards are a people of kings and mighty deeds and great halls, the Stonefoots are the wandering kin of the Khazad, to whom is given to be arbiter and judge, to ensure that the warlike fires that burn in Khazad do not burn too greatly, to mark the voice of law and of impartiality. They have neither home nor domain, but places to move and from whence to gaze upon works shaped and given shape by others. To have home and to have domain would be to seek to guide them partially, to have none is to be welcome in all, to be the clan of mercy and of judgment. Along among the Dwarves Father and Mother Stonefoot had hair of gold, and it is said that all that is fair-haired among the Dwarves comes of them. 

The Blacklocks were made with beards of obsidian, it is said, and they are the most secretive of the Dwarves, for in them is said to live the spirit closest to Allfather, and knowledge of his designs. Of their holdings even the other Fathers know little, and that their women are held the most beautiful of Dwarf-kind, moreso than the Longbeards. Their mother had eyes of bright porcelain, and pupils of a deep and rich brown as of the Earth that gave Dwarves birth.

In the beginning, the Maker made, and his greatest of servants with him, and the Khazad were built, beings who took their first breath and beheld the majesty and the splendor of he who had forged them. He began to tell them secret things and taught them Khuzdul, the secret speech, known only in the Dwarven-realms. Beyond it they spoke the Common Tongue, that which links the Free Peoples, and even together if not in their halls or alone among their kindred, they would speak it then. To the tongues of the tall sons of Illuvatar with ears sharp as blades it is an unlovely tongue deeply shaped by Valarin. To Men it is a guttural and a raspy thing, a voice befitting beings they believe come of stone and die of stone.

The Maker made and he thanked his Maiar, sons in his thoughts, though not in blood kindred.

As one the thirteen Dwarves (for Mother Freyja slept apart from her husband, though both would meet near and over the waters of Kibil-Nala) listened and then a voice spoke with a sound as of booming horns and of rushing waters.

**_My son, what is it that you have done here?_ **

Mahal froze. He turned pale and then he knelt before his father, He that is Allfather, who dwells beyond the material world. The Fourteen heard but they did not hear. 

_**I have given to thee my design, and it is that I have built a world with two Children, The Firstborn, to build the world, the Secondborn to inherit it until the writ is complete and that which shall be shall see a Day of Doom and a last battle.** _

_**Not to Thee is it given to amend my design, nor to seek to amend it. Melkor, thy brother, has sought such things and his is a ruinous path.** _

Mahal knelt, then prostrated himself.

_**Father, thou hast shown me great things, the ability to take my hammer and to bring forth from stone and metal that which was not there in the raw substances worked and rebuilt. Thou hast shown wonders with thy flame, how then can thy children be faulted for seeking to emulate thou who hast given us visions and dreaming, and to seek to make them real? No rebellion have I done unto thee, O Father of all. I have sought to make things in thy honor to people thy world, to make thine design enhanced in a beauty it already had.** _

_**Father forgive me, for I did not know what it is that was done.** _

Tears of fire wept down his cheeks, and with leaden steps he started to move toward his hammer, and in that sorrow he missed a sudden radiant light that filled the room. It was and is the Flame Imperishable, the visible incarnate majesty of creation, and from it the Fathers and Mothers of all the Dwarf-clans took their first breaths and stared into a world of wonder, their eyes rapt.

They saw their father raising a hammer, his eyes closed, and tears of fire streaking down his cheeks, and his hands trembled. He could not-

He felt a hand, powerful and yet soft, a sense of love and compassion beyond anything that he knew pervading the room.

**_Look, my son. See thine creations and their motions._ **

He looked, and the hammer fell as he gazed in awe.

**_Were they but constructs of thy thought they would stand still and thine hammer would dash them and there would be nothing. My design shall be amended, O my son, and thy creation shall know their place. They shall be my hammer to rebuild the world, and my sword against the Great Enemy, for thy will and thy bid to make a force that he can break but he cannot rule shall be granted. But this alone shall be thy punishment for thy impatience. They shall awaken after the fathers of the Firstborn._ **

Aule felt his father's arms embracing him and he wept, in relief, and he heard his Father speak words meant only for his ears:

 ** _You proved to me that you were not as Melkor when you bowed, and you spoke of pride. I take pride in all that thou hast built, and I would never ask thee to destroy thy works. Melkor opposes thee more than most, save Manwe and Ulmo, and there shall be great grief between thee and he. Even absent this, my son, thou art my son and fathers do not ask sons to destroy their work, to meet some claim of_** _**loyalty. Thou art my son, and in mine heart, and in mine love shalt thou remain beyond the end of time.**_

The Fathers and mothers of the Dwarves were set in slumber, for a time, a time, and half a time. 

As time was reckoned in the age before Sun and Moon, in the age when Laurelin and Telperion were the second light and the greatest works of the Star-Kindler and the Queen of Earth, where Sky and Land met and knew unity, it was the night after the first Fathers of the Elves awoke in Cuivinien that the first Father of the Dwarves awoke, alone, in halls shaped with door and the first arts of his father the Maker, in what would become Khazad-Dum. For a time he walked alone beneath the mountain, and then in that age before Sun and Moon, he found the sleeping Freyja and sang the first of the love-songs between the Dwarf Fathers and the Dwarf mothers, and when Freyja awoke, so did the other Fathers and Mothers of all the clans.


End file.
